Bachelor Party: A Manly Event for Manly Nerds.

Hey all, first time poster, long time reader, etc. etc. I've got what might be an unusual question, as one might guess based on the title. But I've been asked to be the best man in my best friend's wedding this summer and I'm working on planning out the bachelor party. I've arranged to rent a cabin from some family friends in the Bend, Oregon area for a weekend and all the typical stuff will apply: grill up some steaks, do some target shooting, smoke some cigars, and all that good stuff, should be a fun time.

Here's the thing, though: my friend and I have grown up as what you might call "nerds". We like video games, fantasy novels, and pen-and-paper roleplaying games. We've spent a lot of time going on grand adventures to save the world, rescue the princess, and all that good stuff. Now that my buddy's entering the next stage of his life and has found himself his own princess, if you will, I thought it'd be cool to give him a real adventure, too.

Sure, marriage is an adventure in its own right, but I'm talking Tolkein-esque quest stuff here: something to get him out there, Frodo Baggins style and go on some big journey. Bend is a pretty great scenic area with a lot of trails, caves, and rivers; perfect for your classic frontier adventure. Right now I've got a rough plan to give him a GPS, a series of coordinates, and drop him off somewhere with his groomsmen (his Fellowship of the Ring... yeah, I went there) and have some of the other guests set up various challenges at each of the coordinates that he has to accomplish. Ergo, he ventures across a river to point A where he has to complete a target shooting challenge, because every man needs to know how to defend his family. He explores a cave at point B and has to face off against the crazy old hermit, who challenges him on biblical trivia pertaining to married life (groom is a bible college graduate and the son of our home church pastor).

So what I'm asking is if anybody has any more ideas for challenges or adventures; stuff every man should know or master before marriage, stuff that men should just know how to do in general, or something that you've seen in your favorite adventure movie that you just think would be really cool to do (within reason; I'd rather not evoke the wrath of his fiance for breaking his arms or something).

Thanks in advance, guys, looking to see what we can come up with.

EDIT: Also, because I don't want to start up another topic and start spamming these boards too much for one thing, I'm also having some trouble getting all the attendees schedules' to line up well. Should I try to downgrade to a simple "dinner at a steakhouse" kind of thing to try and make it all work better or should I talk to the groom and see if he's okay with one or two guys not making it? (For the record, the groom knows about the trip, he just doesn't know about this "quest" thing yet.) Suggestions?

Good man. Now to your quest. You have feats of skill and knowledge; what of strength, will and cunning? Or you could run down your character sheet; strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma.

We've got a few guys in the party that are big into orienteering, geo-caching, and that kind of thing, hence why I thought the "drop him into the wilderness" thing could be kind of fun.

And yeah, we'll have relational advice from some of the married guys later in the day during some drinks or something, and while I agree practical "boring" life skills are probably more important than learning how to punch out a bear, "The Tale of Sir Lancelot and his Tax Returns" isn't one that made it into the storybooks.

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